SC congressman is leading the charge to help a Navy SEAL accused of a war crime
A U.S. Navy SEAL accused of murdering a prisoner of war has an ally in a South Carolina congressman.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump tweeted that Special Operations Chief Eddie Gallagher would be moved to “less restrictive confinement” while he awaits court martial on charges that he stabbed a wounded Islamic State fighter to death and then posed for photos with the body.
In making the announcement on Twitter, the president tagged U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill.
Norman has made Gallagher’s case a focus on his Twitter feed and in media interviews in the past week. While not the only member of Congress to take up the cause of the sailor — who is not from South Carolina — Norman’s advocacy appears to have reached the president.
Norman said on Twitter he spoke to Trump by phone on Friday, ahead of Trump’s announcement.
Norman said he believed Gallagher’s service — including two Bronze Stars and eight tours of duty — meant he should be housed in more lenient conditions while confined ahead of his court martial.
“This man spent 20 years of his life (in the Navy), he spent 15 of them as a SEAL,” Norman said in an interview with Fox News. “That’s no way to treat a military hero, and what message does that send to others who volunteer to defend their country?”
Gallagher has been held in Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego since September, reports the Navy Times. It’s a detention facility that Norman said puts the SEAL alongside “rapists” and “pedophiles.”
In 2017, Gallagher allegedly stabbed to death a wounded Islamic State fighter — believed to have been a teenage boy — while the fighter was in U.S. custody in Iraq.
He later allegedly posed for a photo with the fighter’s corpse while acting out his re-enlistment ceremony, according to the Navy Times.
Gallagher also stands accused of indiscriminately firing his weapon at civilians while serving with the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 7 in the fight to drive the Islamic State group out of Iraq.
When reached for comment by McClatchy, Norman’s office said the congressman learned of Gallagher’s case from an interview with U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. Norman then talked about the case with Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw, himself a former Navy SEAL, and with Gallagher’s family.
“From the start, the Congressional focus has been on Chief Gallagher’s extraordinarily restrictive incarceration in the brig, for months on end while awaiting trial,” said Norman spokesman Austin Livingston.
“Rep. Norman and many of his colleagues in Congress felt this level of confinement was not appropriate for a decorated soldier who still had the presumption of innocence,” Livingston said.
Norman has declined to take a stance on Gallagher’s guilt or innocence, saying that will be determined by “a fair and impartial trial.”
“But until proven otherwise, it’s appropriate that he be treated as a decorated soldier who still has the presumption of innocence,” Norman said.
This story was originally published April 3, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
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